It’s an eye-opening tale of two cities—or, in this case, two countries.
While the U.S. birth rate continues to decline, China claims to be ramping up efforts to encourage women to have more babies.
United States
Data from 2020 shows that births have been falling almost continuously for more than a decade. For every 1,000 women of childbearing age (15-44), 55.8 of them gave birth to a child in 2020, compared to 69.5 in 2007, a 20 percent decline.
“This is the sixth consecutive year that the number of births has declined after an increase in 2014, down an average of 2 percent per year, and the lowest number of births since 1979,” according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
The total fertility rate, a measure constructed from that data to estimate the average number of children a woman will ever have, fell from 2.12 in 2007 to 1.64 in 2020.
That is well below the level of 2.1, the rate needed for a generation to replace itself.
Sadly, the data shows the impact of abortion—nearly one million per year—and changing attitudes among women are having a serious impact on the U.S. culture.
Reasons
In an article from The New York Times the author revealed that, “For decades delaying parenthood was the domain of upper-middle-class Americans, especially in big, coastal cities. Highly educated women put off having a baby until their careers were on tract, often until their early 30s. Over the past decade, as more women of all social classes have prioritized education and career, delaying childbearing has become a broad pattern among American women almost everywhere.”
The result has been the slowest growth of the American population since the 1930s, the author added.
“The story here is about young women, whose births are plummeting,” Caitlin Myers, an economist at Middlebury College, was quoted saying. “All of a sudden, in the last 10 years, there’s this tremendous transformation,” she added.
Myers’ data shows that the birthrate is falling fastest in places with the greatest job growth, where women have more incentive to wait.
“I cannot have a kid and not have to feel bad about it,” said Eboni McFadden, 28, who grew up in rural Missouri and recently graduated as a medical technician in Phoenix, AZ. “I feel powerful that I can make that decision with my own body. I don’t have to have a kid to be successful or to be a woman.”
Kristal Wynn, 36, said she still wants children, but, “It won’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t happen. I’m at a point in my life where I could be fulfilled by other things.”
China
Worried about its 1.3 fertility rate, last month China announced it’s expanding the country’s two-child policy to three. The dictatorial regime imposed a two-child limit per family in 2016.
The recent changes are in marked contrast to the 1979 one-child policy which was carried out with unthinkable brutality and total disregard for the Personhood of every pre-born child.
Frequently, women who attempted to hide their second pregnancy, were forced to have an abortion and were then sterilized. Their family was also fined, demoted at work, and shunned socially.
The gruesome reality of the one-child policy shocked the world in 2012 with the forced abortion on a 23-year-old who was seven months pregnant.
The tragedy gained worldwide attention after her husband posted graphic photographs of the dead child lying next to her.
Chinese officials forcefully preformed the abortion because the family could not pay the $6,300 penalty for having an unsanctioned pregnancy.
Nine-month-old Drowned in a Bucket
Also in 2012, LifeSiteNews published a chilling photograph of a baby nine months in utero drowned in a bucket of water—another victim of the one-child policy. According to reports, the mother was forcibly held down and given an injection to induce labor. After delivery, the baby, who cried, was placed in the bucket to drown.
The country’s “family planning police” hunted the couple down because they already had one child.
Eventually concerned about its aging population and a shrinking young workforce, in 2016 China instituted the two-child policy.
The change had little effect. The birth rate did not increase. Years of state propaganda telling women that a lone child was likely to be cleverer and prettier had a huge cultural impact.
Recent polls indicate that the three-child policy will not receive any better reception than the two-child. “I would never think of it,” responded 29,000 women who were asked if they would have more children.
While China has taken a step in the right direction by allowing more births, they have proven they can’t be trusted. There’s no doubt authorities will be just as brutal in enforcing the three-child policy as they were the one child.
In addition, there’s every reason to believe they will reverse the latest policy once they feel they have reached their population goal.
The United States won’t see enough births to reach its replacement rate until lawmakers have the courage to pass a Personhood amendment to the Constitution, and women understand that motherhood is both a blessing and a rewarding experience.
Both countries need to realize it’s not the government’s role to dictate how many children a family can or cannot have. China and the United States need our prayers. Georgia Right to Life also needs your prayers, as well as financial support, to continue its mission of restoring respect and protection for all innocent life.
Sources: lifesitenews.com; nytimes.com; usnews.com; ifstudies.org; brookings.edu; cdc.gov.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor.